"Felt like chap in Paris who picked up fille and went to maison d'amour. In midst of things heard a chuckle. Around wall some tiny holes, behind each some one who had paid small fee for privilege."
Howard Vincent O'Brien, Wine, Women and War: A Diary of Disillusionment (1927)
It is vulgar to suppose that privacy has no purpose apart from concealment of crime and turpitude, and vulgarity is of course the reason this supposition is so widespread. The fact is that even perfect innocence requires privacy and is soiled by the eyes of a chuckling voyeur. The guiltless uses of privacy are various and not easily summarized, but all are in some way connected to the cultivation of individuality. A savage may be taciturn, but his thoughts and feelings are not private. His thoughts and feelings are reflections of the thoughts and feelings of his tribe.
The savage has a hive-mind, a single heart, and no use whatsoever for privacy.
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